CAUSE Canada’s ongoing efforts to improve quality of life for women and children in Guatemala and Honduras has received a boost of $4.4 million in federal funding.
Last week, Canmore-based CAUSE (Christian Aid for Under-Assisted Societies Everywhere) was one of 36 non-government and educational organizations across Canada to receive funding from Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada.
“The list reads like a who’s who of international development,” said CAUSE found Paul Carrick. “We put together a comprehensive document which took a lot of energy about six months ago.
“The bad part was that every NGO in the country spent Christmas working on it, but now we don’t feel so bad.”
For CAUSE, its $4.4-million IMPACT Guatemala and Honduras initiative aims to improve health service access and use by pregnant and lactating mothers and children under five years of age in over 100 hard-to-reach communities in Guatemala and Honduras.
The initiative will help strengthen health systems by renovating existing structures and ensuring they are staffed with well-trained aides. The initiative will also contribute to improving maternal, newborn and child nutrition by increasing consumption of nutritional food and supplements by pregnant and lactating women as well as children under the age of five, and encouraging women to initiate early breastfeeding and to exclusively breastfeed their infants for at least five months.
Carrick said indices for maternal child health and newborn mortality rates in Guatemala and Honduras are dismal.
“Central America is going backwards in these areas – it’s an absolute scandal. It’s stunning, to be frank, that there is this need, governments are dropping the ball.”
The CAUSE funds will be delivered over 4.5 years and the organization itself must raise $600,000 in matching funds over that time span.
Funds from the annual CAUSE Canada half marathon, for example, will be put toward the $600,000. “We’ll need to raise $130,000 a year for the next four years as part of a 7-1 match program,” said Carrick.
“But this program will save the lives of mothers and babies.”
Other groups which garnered funding ranged from World Vision Canada to Western University and the University of Calgary. The Red Cross, Care Canada and Christian Children’s Fund, among the 36, were joined by French Canadian groups such as Afrique Future Canada and Carrefour de solidarité international.
